


Clarity

by CheshireCity



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Affectionate Kagune Use, Aftermath of Torture, Body Dysphoria, Body Horror, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Crisis, Existentialism, Franz Kafka References, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, Intersex Kaneki, Introspection, Kagune Cuddles, Literary References & Allusions, Loss of Identity, M/M, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Horror, Quotes from The Metamorphosis, Suicidal Ideation, Violence, mentions of sexual abuse, mentions of torture, past emotional/psychological abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 08:33:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6231655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshireCity/pseuds/CheshireCity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The aftermath of Yamori's torture leaves Kaneki Ken in a state of abject depression. Numbed to the world around him, he copes in the only way he's ever known: escaping reality by identifying with a literary character. But no matter how removed he is emotionally, the anger and the shame surge forward eventually, and, determined to never be weak again, he begins his path towards becoming a kakuja. Tsukiyama, however, won't allow Kaneki to completely destroy himself, no matter the cost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clarity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chocolatemoosey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocolatemoosey/gifts).



> Obviously the quotes from "The Metamorphosis" do not belong to me, but to Franz Kafka and his estate.

_“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. […] ‘What’s happened to me?’ he thought. It was no dream.”_ (Kafka, 1.1-2)

            Allegory can be found in all things. In sleeping and in waking, the written word permeates all forms of life, describes all experiences: both pain and pleasure. In some cases it is allegory that makes living bearable. A shield for the damaged, it elevates feeling above the bitterness of reality. And that was how Ken Kaneki found he could cope best.

            It had always been so with him: burying himself in what remained of his father’s study, he disappeared from existence and slipped between the pages of someone else’s life. All his fears, his burdens, his pains dissipated in an instant. He could fully immerse himself in another reality: feel as others felt and cast off his own mortal entrapment. Naturally, this habit never faded as he entered adulthood.

            Except with maturity came a bitter awareness. He couldn’t ever be anyone but Ken Kaneki, no matter how much he wished to get away from himself. But what he could do was empathize. Immersing himself in the books he so loved, he pictured himself as the characters therein, finding himself in their stories and experiences and dissociating entirely from the inescapability of his own reality.

            In this manner he rediscovered Gregor Samsa, the tragic protagonist of the iconic _Metamorphosis_. The tale had been a favorite of his since he was young, the sheer horror and torment gripping at his imagination with each turn of the page. But it wasn’t until now, at nineteen years of age, that he could read and reread the story and find unironic likeness to the hideous insect that Gregor had become.

            After all, Kaneki had met his own metamorphosis.

            He’d felt it creeping over him, slowly at first, a persistent itching at the back of his mind. The more he tried to ignore it the louder it got, rising into a crashing roar. He was standing at the bank of a river before a bridge. He hesitated on the precipice as a woman with gluttonous lips coaxed him onward, entreating him to join her. He put a foot upon the wood: if he crossed, there would be no going back. Once settled on the other side, he would never be the same.

            Hurt and hurting.

            Starve and eat.

            Human and ghoul.

            Black and white.

            He took the plunge, and there was no going back. From that point onward, there would only ever be a ‘before’ and an ‘after’.

            When he burst from the chair that had restrained him for days, he felt nothing. As he battled, bled, and broke, he felt nothing. When he tore into his captor’s flesh and brutalized him, he felt nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

            And it was Heaven.

            Then he was settled into the secluded house, sitting among his followers and supporters. The first inklings of emotion began to seep through his heart. Tsukiyama stood before him with a smile, offering him a cup of coffee. Wordlessly, Kaneki accepted, cupping his hands around the steaming mug, fingers brushing over the other man’s.

            And that’s when he saw it. The soft, fleshy moons of Tsukiyama’s nails, a healthy pink blushing out into white at the tips. His own nails, brittle and blackened, skin under the surface swollen with burst blood and bruises. He recoiled in an instant, mug crashing to the carpet, coffee spilling into a darkening stain. The Gourmet jumped in concern, making to touch consolingly at a shoulder, but Kaneki had shut down already, legs pulled tight to his chest, eyes wide and glazed.

            The lancing pain of splitting flesh. The terrible crack and splinter of bone. The steady _plop plop plop_ of little digits hitting the filling bottom of the metal bucket. The scraping creak of metal against metal as the pliers reopened their maws, ready to bite again.

            It was no dream. The evidence stained his own hands, marked him out as different, as somehow defective. He had changed, and now everyone could see it. He would have no choice but to carry it with him. Would have to endure the pitying looks, the concern.

            They could only see the before, and he was the after.

            He continued to count the scars, slowly taking stock of all the ways in which his body had changed and betrayed him. Little rings of white encircled his joints, the skin light and fresh from repetitive healing. They were slight, but just noticeable enough for Kaneki to make note of them. The ridges at the backs of his tendons would probably never fully fade. They littered the backs of his knees and the whole of his Achilles tendon, just memories of all the times he was forbidden to run, to protect himself. His tongue still ached from the myriad times it had been cut and torn out, feeling entirely new in his head. The topography of his teeth had changed, and he would stare into the mirror for hours just squeezing and examining every inch of his face: just the same as it had always been to anyone but him.

            Most noticeable, of course, was his hair. Pure white, the tresses were brittle and coarse. Every time he ran his fingers through them, he would end up with strands in his palm. Even brushing it too roughly resulted in shedding. He wondered distantly if it would all fall out, noting the places in which the hair had grown thin. Surely it would never return back to black: it was far too stressed and unhealthy.

            But he could care less about the health of his hair. It was more the fact that it could be seen by others that made him flush with shame and disgust.

            It was the comments of praise by young kids on the street, contrasted with the judgmental glares of the older members of the community. The unspoken insinuation that he had done this to himself, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he had. After all, he had volunteered to go with Yamori. He had willingly sacrificed his freedom. Had he not in his own right chosen his fate? Looking at the details, his situation hadn’t been even half as cruel as his captor’s: he, at least, had been given a choice.

            Yamori… he was a topic that Kaneki never brought up but thought about constantly. Would he have done this? Would he have thought this? It was an obsession. He understood all too clearly what the man had meant about torture, how the identity of one person could neatly merge with that of another, leaving them indistinguishable: who was the torturer and who was the tortured? Kaneki could no longer parse out the difference. After all, Yamori had the same hateful white hair, and he knew exactly how he came to have it.

            After everything he had endured, he had awoken in an alien world that no longer made sense to him. He was the after, a hideous insect, and it was no dream.

            The last days of December melted into one dreary mess. Kaneki lay in his bed, watching as the shadows of his room stretched in and out of shape, looking every bit as distorted as he felt. Seldom moving to relieve himself, he lay in the same clothes day after day and gave up entirely on washing himself.

_“…his indifference to everything was much too deep for him to have gotten on his back and scrubbed himself clean on the rug.”_ (Kafka, 3.13)

            Morning cycled into afternoon into night. He didn’t eat, and scarcely slept. Then it would all become too much, and he’d find himself awaking ten or more hours later than he’d last remembered. He didn’t care. He continued to lay, numbed out to everything around him.

            Banjou and Tsukiyama would appear at his bedside sometimes, talking to him in soft, worried tones. He couldn’t quite process what they had to say. He asked them to leave.

            Hinami made her best attempts as well.

“ _[His sister] came in on tiptoe, as if she were visiting someone seriously ill or perhaps even a stranger.”_ (Kafka, 2.7)

            Was he a stranger to her now? Kaneki couldn’t be certain. He was undeniably a stranger to himself: some unidentifiable creature walking in the skin of a body he used to understand. But the change in him was still fresh and he knew that Hinami – his Grete – may very well soon abandon him and call him a monster.

            He appreciated her all the same, but Kaneki could hear her no better than the others. He allowed her presence and provided her with room enough to curl up beside him on the mattress. Her heartbeat – so loud in his ears – was soothing and offered a sort of primordial comfort. He slept the easiest when she was by his side. She was the one to notice the changes in him, but she kept to herself and said nothing.

            Those changes were greater than most knew. When the first drops of blood came, Kaneki was awash with disgust and relief. Standing in the steam of the bathroom after a shower, he examined his altered frame. The scars, the coloration: all of it was external and cosmetic. He kept to himself the most startling change of all: the alteration of his sex in the fallout of days of genital mutilation.

            He wasn’t entirely certain if the things he’d endured had left him sterile or not. While he still retained his dick, the rest of his male genitalia had either failed to regenerate or had become entirely internal. More noticeably, however, was the cleft in his skin between his legs, the delicate rise of a clit and the gentle folds of skin that surrounded his pussy.

            Six days into being cut apart and assaulted, the change had begun to manifest. His own regenerative abilities slowed greatly by the RC suppressants, he called feebly out to the woman on the other side of the bridge. Rize took pity on him, and her transplanted kakuhou did the best it could to protect him. The organ of a female ghoul, it did only what it knew best, healing him in a way that was foreign to him – and also completely exciting to Yamori.

            He lorded the metamorphosis over Kaneki, threw it in his face as if he was directly responsible. He smirked and he threatened. He’d make him pregnant, leave no shadow of a doubt if what had happened was real or not. He’d make it known to everyone who saw Kaneki exactly what had become of him. That he’d been ‘had’. And then, he promised, he’d take that child and he’d show them all the infinite means of torture. He’d mold them to be just like him.

            Kaneki was terrified. Underneath all the apathy and the deadened senses, he couldn’t help but fear that those claims would come into fruition.

            And then on the night of the New Year, he saw the blood and knew that Yamori had failed to leave behind a genetic legacy.

            The relief overpowered the blooming sense of dysphoria: he was a male in his own mind, but he knew then that he could produce children by his own body. The concept weighed heavily in his mind. After everything he went through, it was enough to fathom that anyone would want him. He’d been told enough times that he was damaged merchandise. Knowing his body had changed so drastically only deepened his fears: would his sex produce disgust in others? Would he ever be seen as lovable or desirable?

            He wanted to know, and he wanted to have sex. He wanted to grapple for the reassurance he so craved, to convince himself that intimacy didn’t necessitate pain, that he could end things when he wanted. He wanted to regain control and to allow himself to feel vulnerable out of love rather than fear. And because he wanted these things, he felt dirty.

            So he passed the time by lying silently in bed, shutting out everything around him and begging the thoughts in his head to be quiet. The group had tried to drag him out for New Years, but he had told them to go ahead. They hesitated, hanging by his door as if hopeful he’d change his mind. When it was obvious he wasn’t, they left, downcast. Kaneki continued to rest until the first sun of the new year peaked over the horizon, blaring bars of light across his room. Kaneki watched absently, then rolled over and dreamed of nothing.

            By the second week of January, Tsukiyama could take no more and had pulled Kaneki out of bed. It was hard going, with his dislike of being touched, but the Gourmet had coaxed him and at length he tottered out into the living room. The group looked up in surprise, disbelieving that Tsukiyama had actually managed to revive their leader. Kaneki refused to meet any of their glances and curled up in an empty armchair.

            He could feel their worries as if he were swimming in it. It was asphyxiating and he was drowning fast. Humoring them as best he could, he tried to pick up his old hobbies, willing himself to find pleasure in them once more. It failed miserably. He helped Hinami with her kanji, he trained, he picked up old books. Nothing brought him joy anymore. He felt fake and insincere no matter how much he tried at normalcy.

            Reading the same books as he always had, he sunk deeper into his depression. His followers worried, wondering if it was the best material for him to be going through. They tried to purchase him ‘happier novels’, but he found quickly that he couldn’t stomach them. People like Kafka and Hesse and Takatsuki? They were the ones who truly understood him now.

            It was getting maddening, really, knowing that no one else could. For all of his companion’s attempts to involve themselves in his life and to bring back his old disposition they lacked the ability to truly empathize with him. He couldn’t stand their pity, but he felt simultaneously responsible for their misery. He couldn’t fake his happiness, and even that seemed to depress them.

_“[He] would have to lie low and, by being patient and showing his family every possible consideration, help them bear the inconvenience which he simply had to cause them in his present condition.”_ (Kafka, 2.6)

            Consideration? Seclusion? Minimization? He had known practically nothing but those things in the past, and they weren’t so very hard to revert to in the present. He did his best to stay out of sight from his companions – half unable to bring them any further pain and half unable to bear seeing it himself. The least he could do for them, after all, was not to be a bother.

            By the terminus of January, he had begun to feel the beginnings of anger. He funneled it into everything: at the inability of his supporters to truly understand how he was feeling; at Yamori for everything he had forced him to experience and endure; at Aogiri Tree for knowingly leaving him to his torture; at himself for feeling so weak and so helpless, completely at the mercy of his nightmares – waking and dreaming. He needed an outlet and he couldn’t find it.

_“[T]ormented by self-reproaches and worry, he began to crawl about, he crawled over everything, walls, furniture, ceiling, and finally in desperation, as the whole room was beginning to spin, fell down onto the middle of the big table.”_ (Kafka, 2.26)

            Kaneki only wished that he could do the same. He could no longer stand his own existence, his own pathetic thoughts and worries and obsessions. He wanted to crawl around, to crawl out of his very skin. He wanted to shed away the person he was, forget all the things that he knew, and just breathe a sigh of relief in the body of someone else. He wanted to start over on his terms and it was driving him to insanity.

            It was times like this, when his mind was beginning to slip, that he’d lose control of his body as well. Tormented by his own mind, he would begin to feel a familiar burn in his left eye, a dull aching at the back of the socket that quickly lanced into a searing heat as his sclera began to wax black, his pupil reddening. The arrival of the kakugan was just the prelude to what followed: a sudden burn at his back and then a tearing of fabric as his kagune sprung forth, tentacle appendages thrashing about and boring holes in the walls.

            He’d turn the dangerous extensions of his body inward, letting them grapple with his skin and slice neat ribbons across it. The blood smell only drove him further to the brink, holding on to consciousness just long enough to keep from utterly destroying everything within reach. The kagune would rage, completely free of his control, twisting around his limbs, choking at his neck, burrowing through his skin, his organs. The carpet and sheets would be caked with the rust of his blood and by the end of the ordeal he’d be curled up and shivering, languishing over the lingering pain and feeling – fleetingly – alive.

_“[…] although moving about in that way left him sad and tired to death and he would remain immobile for hours afterwards”_ (Kafka, 3.9)

            But now it was February, snow sticking wetly to the ground outside and coating the world in an eerie and somber white. Kaneki was done with feeling vulnerable. He was angry, livid. That he felt so powerless to help himself? That he was so incapable of protecting others? It was unforgivable. So he began to train, spending hours upon countless hours in the lower reaches of the house, arching his body through forms and figures. He read compulsively, tearing through manuals and visual guides and descriptive fiction, soaking up every word and image that could twist his body into a better fighter. A better killer.

            The first time it happened, it was surprisingly easy. He had been on a morning run – just another extension of his obsessive new hobby – when he had come across the scene: a predatory looking man leering over a crying woman sheltering a baby. His body was ragged and thin, his grasp on her wrist impossibly tight for his fragile frame. There was no question that he was a starving ghoul.

            Kaneki interjected himself calmly, asking politely if anyone needed assistance. The woman stared, wide eyed in fear, between the man, Kaneki, and back again. So it was like that, huh? The kagune slid freely from Kaneki’s back and sunk with a sickening squelch through the man’s body, popping through the cavity of his chest and beyond his back. The woman screamed and the baby began to wail. Kaneki shot her a pitying look and told her to run.

            Alone, he sunk to his knees, shaking as the curling tang of blood seeped through his senses. He could remember everything clearly: the slick of roiling intestines, the give of flesh, the rip of tendinous kagune muscle. The taste, like rotting fish guts. Adrenaline coursed through his system, flooding it with a power high glow. Thoughtlessly, he descended, fingers clawing, ripping apart clothing and exposing the back, flaying it open until the kakuhou peeked through the puckered flesh. Greedily, he ripped it from its casing, teeth puncturing the bitter organ, tearing it apart. Bite after bite, swallow after swallow, he devoured the dead ghoul.

            And he began to feel. It was power, strength, lust,… and joy.

            And it wasn’t enough.

            Jittery and excited, he stalked through the streets, wiping the blood from his lips and keeping his head down. All he was reduced to was his most carnal self: scent and taste and predatory hunger. It wasn’t hard to find his next victim: saddled with prey of their own, they made an easy find. The ghoul reared in alarm, kagune extending as they made to defend their food and territory. Kaneki strung them along, scenting the area. He couldn’t detect any young ghouls, so his target was probably a loner. Satisfied, he ripped his prey apart limb by limb, boring out their teeth and tongue so their screams became muted.

            He supped on their kagune and kakuhou, slurping down the meat as the other ghoul whimpered and spasmed beneath him. They might live, maybe. Kaneki stared at them disinterestedly as they begged. Annoyed, he knocked their head against the asphalt, rendering them unconscious.

            It wasn’t until he was covered in the entrails of his third victim that his head began to clear, thoughts and fears shifting to the surface. Joy… why was he feeling so elated? Why did the slaughter and the screams drive him to such heights? It was almost like… no, it _was_ like… disgust filled him. He felt sick. Shaking through his bubbling tears, he vomited, coughing and spluttering into the back of an alley. The looks of anguish, and sour spiking scent of terror: all of it had been such a thrill. So… _pleasurable._

            He put a hand to his stomach. Yamori didn’t have to impregnate him to create a progeny: he already lived on beneath Kaneki’s very flesh. His hatred, his hair, the way he cracked his knuckles. All of it lay dormant just beneath the skin. In the end it seemed there really was no escaping him.

            So he had began to outline rules for himself, little auspicious dos and don’ts. If it was raining, it was a good day to hunt. If he woke up after noon, then hunting was no good. If the ghoul was actively eating a human, they were fair game. If they had just murdered, then they were deserving of a slower death. Children, of course, were off the menu.

            In this manner, he began building a reputation for himself. Ghouls and humans alike whispered fearfully about “Eyepatch”, their glances wary and alert. Now when he killed he was met with dawning apprehension and horror. It only thrilled him further.

            He would come home, mouth smelling of meat and eyes strained from the attempt to hold back the kakugan. His companions said little, their expressions crumpled and nervous. No one knew what to say to him.

            Banjou would choke on his greetings, wanting desperately to parent or brother Kaneki. He wished so badly to ask after his safety, to beg him to stop, to not endanger them all. No one knew, however, how the young ghoul would react. They’d seen the results of his loss of control, the damage he wrought not only to his bedroom but his own body, as well. None of them particularly relished kagune through their stomachs.

            Hinami was the quietest of all, observing the change in her adoptive brother through pain-filled eyes. She missed the quiet boy he used to be, always helpful and enthused to teach her. That Ken Kaneki appeared to be long since dead and buried, replaced instead by a stranger. Kaneki himself had no false illusions about this disconnect, and he distanced them even further from one another in a meager attempt to lessen the pain to the young girl.

            He fell into routine, rising early and making himself a cup of coffee. This established, he would take an hour to read – now never for pleasure – before descending below the house to train for hours on end. As night rose around him, he would don his hunting clothes: a shirt and a coat short enough in the back not to tangle in his kagune. Then he’d be out past midnight, returning home quietly and strung out from his kills.

            Tsukiyama took to waiting up at night. He was not a main occupant of the home even though it was rented under his money and name. He gracefully accepted that he wasn’t wanted there, but it didn’t keep him from visiting with frequency. After all, someone had to care for Hinami in Kaneki’s stead. He brought her little books and flowers, doting on her and regretting that he couldn’t get her the little chocolates and sweets he’d see at the patisseries on the way. Instead, he got her little bits of cute stationary and ribbons for her hair. He knew the presents would do nothing for her loneliness, but he didn’t know what else to do.

            Kaneki was another matter, however. Kaneki he could worry about and watch out for. He was growing increasingly worried about the young man’s habits; the scent of ghoul flesh and viscera clung to him like a cloud of death. It was nauseating. “They’re going to start calling you a Shinigami,” he joked one evening. He had surprised the white haired ghoul by sitting up on the couch, lamp turned low and book open in his lap. He hadn’t really been able to focus on reading: he’d been too worried about where Kaneki was and if he was alright.

            “Get lost,” the other returned, shrugging out of his coat and making for his room.

            “Mon chou,” Tsukiyama forced a smile. “Please, let me be your sword; it’s not safe to wander around at night alone.”

            “I’m not a kid anymore,” Kaneki frowned, voice even. “Besides, the only one I have left to fear is me.”

            Tsukiyama just bit his lip and nodded. He knew that the words didn’t come out of cockiness or a misplaced sense of security: rather, he was concerned for the other’s mortality given his path of descent. He’d seen enough in his life of ghouls who had lost their minds after dining on others of their race: to think of losing Kaneki in such a manner was beyond what his heart could bear. If that weren’t enough, there was the ever present danger of drawing attention to himself, or that of the group. The last thing Kaneki needed was to contend with ghoul investigators. Tsukiyama had to wander, and to worry: the Kaneki he knew cried in fear of harming a human – how much hesitance would he afford now?

            Mind resolved, the Gourmet unfolded his legs neatly, collecting his book and wishing Kaneki a good night. The greeting of course, was dismissed, but Tsukiyama didn’t have the energy to mind it. He wasn’t so blind as to not notice his favorite’s depression and apparent symptoms of PTSD. He knew all too well himself how such mental disorders looked. It was strangely painful to see them manifested in someone other than himself, however.

            The following evening, he presented himself to the group as was becoming his habit. They grumbled about his presence and begrudgingly allowed him to stay, clearing room in the living space for him. After Kaneki left for the night, he straightened up, eyes trained and alert. “I’ll be taking my leave now,” he smiled graciously.

            “You’re following nii-san, aren’t you?” Hinami spoke up quietly. She was coloring at the table – another present that Tsukiyama had supplied her with. She didn’t look up from her artwork all the while, and her eyes looked sad.

            “I’m going to bring him home,” the man confirmed, still wearing a mask of cheer.

            “You’re going to get yourself – !” Banjou exclaimed, cutting himself off promptly and shooting Hinami a worried glance. “Uhm… just… be careful.”

            “Don’t die,” Hinami added more honestly.

            Tsukiyama paused long enough to pet her hair before exiting into the darkening street, wrapping his scarf about his shoulders. Following Kaneki these days was easier than ever, his scent having matured and blossomed into something recognizable and near tangible. He found that it didn’t excite him nearly as much as it used to: it was less human and less delicate. It wouldn’t matter, of course: after everything he’d done he knew that Kaneki would never fully trust in him, nor could he blame him.

            Still, he lamented the fact. While he had no doubts that the young man would still taste sinfully delicious, he found that his appetite for him just wasn’t what it used to be. After all, if he devoured him, then there would be nothing left to savor. Moreover… he sighed to himself and buried his nose into his scarf.

            “I’d miss you, mon chou,” he admitted quietly aloud. He rounded a corner and was abruptly hit with the stench of coppery iron. Blood. “Ugh,” he groaned softly, trying to block out the scent.

            Creeping forward, he neared a long alleyway, crammed between a small restaurant and a pachinko parlour. It wasn’t the nicest area of town, and he could tell that it had become a favorite haunt of Kaneki, who seemed to know his way around. With a breath he steadied himself, peering around the corner and into the darkly lit alley, watching the shadows at the end of it. There was a patter of hurried footsteps, a ragged panting of breath, and then an elongated, tortured scream. The fleeing shadow jerked, crumpling to the ground and thrashing about. His attacker made no sound as he advanced, the outline of his kagune making ghosts over his head.

            Tsukiyama advanced along the alley, bowled over by the reek of dying ghoul. He paused in his movements a moment as the shadows opposite him began to distort. The four limbs that made up Kaneki’s kagune twisted about, flexing to the sides and dropping below the outline of his back. They grew in size, little phalanges sprouting from their conjoined form.

            Tsukiyama took a deep breath and stepped into the light just in time to see Kaneki rip out the other ghoul’s throat with his teeth. The feral ghoul growled lowly, a rumbling warning deep in his throat that rippled outwards and curled his lips into a snarl. Blood coated his lips and chin, dripping down to the body below. His body bent at an angle, sprawled predatorily across all fours, he looked absolutely terrifying.

            Blood tinted the fringes of his hair pink and brown, black nails indistinguishable from the bubbling dark blood from the body beneath him. His eyes – one thin and dark, the other bright and crimson – looked insane, cloaked by a strange sort of hooked mask. It curved over the rise of his nose like a beak, a macabre black Plague Doctor beside a corpse. Fanned out behind him was what had become of his kagune: two plump tails edged with glittering black legs, a divided twisting long centipede body.

            The incomplete kakuja launched at him, snarling like a beast and gnashing his teeth. Tsukiyama gasped and summoned his own kagune, willing the weapon to encircle his arm. He parried the oncoming blow, hardening just the outside of his kagune, like a shield. When the blow bounced across the metallic barrier, he softened it, twisting it into a point and resuming the posture of a fencer. Stepping quickly, he defended himself, trying to disarm Kaneki without hurting him. But the other ghoul was too fast and too unhinged, lunging with bared teeth and hands curled up like claws.

            A moment too slow, and pain lanced across Tsukiyama’s chest. He had only a moment to gasp before unforgiving teeth sunk into his shoulder, puncturing his skin despite his shirt. Kaneki growled through the fabric, shaking his head and willing the flesh to part from the bone. The Gourmet winced, heart racing in genuine fear. Under normal circumstances, he would have found Kaneki trying to eat him to be sexy, but in the heat of the moment, he could only worry for his own survival. Swinging his free arm around, he extended his kagune, letting it curl around Kaneki’s thrashing body.

            The younger stilled almost instantaneously, stunned by the sudden touch. The kagune relaxed about him, curling him into a gentle embrace. The madness faded from Kaneki’s eyes, the cells of his kagune and kakuja mask deteriorating like so much dust. Seconds later and he was vulnerable and shaking, sobbing dryly into his hands.

            “I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I’m so sorry.”

            Tsukiyama smiled thinly, drawing the white haired male to his body and entrapping him there. Without warning, Kaneki collapsed against him, hands balling in his ruined shirt. Horror seized him, wracking his body with shivering jerks.

            “All is well, mon petit,” Tsukiyama assured him, reaching out tentatively to pet at his hair. The strands felt kinked and course beneath his fingertips, threatening to break off entirely if he wasn’t ginger enough.

            “No it’s not,” Kaneki returned lowly, head hung between his fists. “No, it’s not okay, nothing’s okay. All I am worth is for killing and protecting. You can’t say it’s not so, it’s bullshit otherwise. My body is just a vessel for my desire; all I can do now is hurt for the sake of sparing others. All I can do is kill.”

            “Mon ch –.”

            “Don’t. Don’t shove garbage down my throat, I can’t take it,” the smaller snapped. “I was always told to be the one who got hurt rather than the one that does the hurting. But I’ve changed, I couldn’t survive like that, it was too much. I couldn’t handle the pain for everyone else and now I’ve become the other person.” Images flashed before his mind’s eye – a smiling, tired woman; a smirking glittery-eyed man. “I’ve become the one that hurts others,” he stated, voice cracking. “I’ve become the monster.”

            In the back of his mind came a pair of gentle white arms, encircling him from behind and pressing him against a soft chest. Rize hummed him a lullaby, nestling her chin against the nest of his hair, soothing him like a child. He relaxed in her familiar grasp, feeling tears prick at his eyes. “I’m just like them,” he told her brokenly.

            “You can’t take on that pain any longer,” she reminded him softly. Her fingers toyed with the fabric of his coat. “You can’t be the plaything for others anymore, Ken.”

            “I know,” he breathed. “But I…”

            “It’s better to be a predator with an agenda, isn’t it?” Rize crooned. “You can protect like this; you can’t get hurt like this. You’re surviving. Nothing has ever been perfect for you: just submit to what has made you.”

            “But I don’t…” Kaneki trailed off, fear choking him as thoroughly as a hand. “If I… he told me… you know, you were there. You’ve _always_ been there. I can’t let him win, not this time. I can’t let him have this, have what he wanted. I won’t be like him, I can’t do it.”

            “You already are,” Rize whispered with a smile.

            And he could see him then, wide rough hands and thin lipped smile. Hear the texture of his voice, low and rasping, soft one minute, then hard the next: the presence of the two Yamori’s clear in his tone – the one that came before and the one that came after. He’d heard his story time and time again. He knew it personally, it blended with his thoughts, intertwined, became his own. He could no longer differentiate them from one another: Yamori’s pain, his pain, Yamori’s pleasure, his pleasure. They were a fucked up amebic whole. And no matter how much he loathed him, hated him, feared him, he knew that he would never be the same without him. Never know how to keep on living, how to feel, how to think. He’d been completely and utterly broken down and he could no longer divine his own self.

            He hated how much he could empathize with his torturer. How much he understood his need for power, for control. Understood his desperation to survive, his thirst to find revenge, his need to vent his compulsions in turns of abject cruelty and near kindness. He hated how he projected himself onto Yamori as much as Yamori projected on to him. How he longed for affection, for someone to tell him things would be alright, that he could rest now, breathe now. How much he wondered if Yamori just needed the same. How he could want to press him against his chest and console him while simultaneously want to tear him to pieces, protect himself from ever being hurt by the other man again.

            Was he just trying his best? Was he just misguided? Hurt? Scared? Desperate to never be weak again, never be the one to take the hurt again?

            Should he really be hated for doing the hurting?

            Kaneki could no longer tell. He’d already known, after all. They were one in the same.

            “Am I worthy?” he asked inside his head. “If I am someone who takes on the role of hurting others, I’m no different from those I kill. If my mission is to pluck those who get in my way, to take those out who hurt the ones I love, then am I deserving of being plucked myself?”

_“He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. His conviction that he would have to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister’s.”_ (Kafka, 3.29)

            Did his existence make others miserable? He had to wonder. If he truly had become as those he hated, then how could anyone be able to love him? To keep from fearing him? It didn’t matter that those in his company no longer saw him as the Kaneki they had come to know, he still loved them, still strove to protect them. If his disappearance would mean their happiness, then he could wish for nothing greater.

            To disappear, to stop, to just vanish. Without a trace, without a body. If he could leave nothing behind, if he could destroy himself, seek out the death of his existence, then perhaps finally he could find happiness, find peace. But he gripped on to life for selfish reasons.

            He wanted to know why he had been made. He wanted to know the reason for his suffering. Wanted to hold others accountable. He wanted closure before his death. “I’m living for nothing,” he whispered. “After I die, there will be nothing. It won’t matter if I know what I want or not. Can someone like me even become a ghost? Even find a Heaven? There is nothing left for me, just nothingness.”

            “It’s not time for you yet, little bug,” Rize countered, kissing the side of his head. “Your clock is still ticking.”

            “I want it to stop,” Kaneki returned, closing his eyes. “I want it to all end. I just want to make others happy. I don’t want to hurt others any longer.”

            When he opened his eyes once more they had settled into their human appearance and Rize was gone. Tsukiyama frowned worriedly down at him, arms braced around his back and holding him upright. “You collapsed, mi amour,” he muttered.

            “Just leave me.”

            The words stung at Tsukiyama’s heart and he pressed gently against the other’s back with his softened kagune. “If that is your wish, you know I will oblige it,” he said slowly. “But I think it would be too dangerous to leave you alone out here: please, let’s go home, shall we?”

            “Just leave me.”

            “…Because you feel you are a monster?” the Gourmet intoned softly. Kaneki tensed against his chest as if stung by the words. “Please, mon chou, you are no such thing. A creature as beautiful as you…” he dropped the poetics with a sigh. “My father always told me that ghouls are like lions in a zoo – they’re beautiful to look at but undeniably deadly. Can we hate them for having to eat? It comes at the cost of other’s lives, after all. But no one hates lions for being lions, they marvel at their beauty, their grace, their strengths. We are lions, mon chou, and we must be careful among the flock we live. We can choose to protect those stock or devour them, but at the end of the day, we are still lions and we should never have to feel bad for that.”

            “You’re saying that we shouldn’t feel guilty?” Kaneki asked. “You believe that humans admire us? That they trust us? Of course that’s not the case. I remember, after all. What it was to be human? To fear every day that you’d get a call that someone you knew had been attacked and eaten? That their family was hurting, that a mother or a brother or a child had been taken away by no more than a murderer? We’re not lions, Tsukiyama, we’re hyenas. Carrion eaters that can only hurt. How is that not like a monster?”

            Tsukiyama cast his gaze aside, knowing the truth of the other’s words. He couldn’t do anything about his apetite, nor about what it took for him to survive. He couldn’t get by living a life of guilt on principle of existence. He’d done that enough in his youth, and the reality was that he’d probably sink back into those toxic feelings in the future, too. He pet Kaneki’s hair, wishing he had the right words, that he was more like his mother had been. She always had known how to care for and comfort. While he was just… Tsukiyama: flamboyant and insincere and untrustworthy.

            “You are not a monster,” he breathed passionately. Carefully, he bumped his relaxed kagune against the others back as if in reminder. “Look closer at what we are, won’t you? What other creature has weapons that can be used in forms of love? What other being can take their teeth and their claws and use them for affection as well as killing? Are we not human in that sense? And what of our kagune? They are so fearsome that our enemies seek them out to use against us. To weaponize for their own protection. But they only see them as violent and dangerous. They don’t know who we really are. _What_ we really are.’

            “We’re living beings, first and foremost. Not monsters, not animals – we’re people. And because of this we have the same range of emotions as any other person. Yes, we can hate and lust and kill and fuck, but we’re so much more than that. Humans so readily forget that we can love. That these ‘weapons’ –” gently he stroked Kaneki’s back with the end of his kagune. “Can be used to comfort and protect, as well.”

            “Comfort?” Kaneki echoed, eyes dull and without hope.

            “Of course, mon chou!” Tsukiyama returned with a smile, affection warming over his expression. “Take out your kagune, would you?”

            “I’ll just hurt you again.”

            “I’m willing to take that chance,” the Gourmet hummed, rubbing lightly at where the younger’s kakuhou rested beneath the skin. He shivered pleasurably at the strange contact, letting his senses overtake him. When his kagune came forward they were in four fleshy pieces, unfurling leisurely from his spine. “Try to raise them,” Tsukiyama coaxed.

            The kagune shot up instantly, attentive and ready to strike. “Slower,” the older instructed, following suit with his own. “Focus on your breathing and relax the muscles: it’s like the difference between reaching for a cup and launching into a punch.”

            Kaneki nodded quietly, breathing slowly through his nose. When he made to move the limbs again, they were jerky, but definitely slower. He repeated the motion until the kagune lifted gracefully upwards, looking as lightweight as bird wings.

            “Good,” Tsukiyama praised. “Now bring them forward in the same way, extend them towards me.”

            Kaneki looked at the other man as though he were crazy, hesitating in his motions. At a confident nod from Tsukiyama, he did as was bid and carefully brought them out around the other man’s body, letting them rest in the air just before his face.

            Tsukiyama smiled and fearlessly reached up with a hand, stroking softly at the kagune limb nearest to him. Kaneki gasped and flushed instantly, unfamiliar with others touching him there. It was strange feeling – not unpleasant – but almost arousing. He averted his gaze sharply, not wanting to be thought a pervert.

            “It’s nice, isn’t it?” Tsukiyama asked perceptively. “Now try to relax them further, let them really get nice and fleshy.” Another hesitation, then Kaneki obliged him. Again Tsukiyama repeated his small movements, stroking the barrel of the kagune’s reach. This time, however, the sensation was less arousing and more comforting, as a hug or a cuddle would be. A small noise keened forth from Kaneki’s throat – a type of chirp he’d only really heard Hinami make when she was surprised or very happy, like when he brushed her hair.

            Tsukiyama smiled immediately, rolling his neck forward so his face nuzzled against the reach of the otherwise lethal kagune. “You see?” he asked softly, letting the tendrils of flesh gently ensnare him. “You are no monster, dolce Kaneki.”

            The white haired man looked away, full of doubt. Despite himself, he let Tsukiyama’s kagune envelop him as well, and slowly they melted into a strange embrace. “Is this okay?” he asked self-consciously. He didn’t know how he really felt about the other man: he wanted to trust him but had experienced too much by his hand to lower his guard too completely ever again. He wanted that desperately to change, wanted to be consoled by his tender looks and ridiculous turns of phrase. For one who craved death’s kiss, he certainly was afraid to find it at the hands of one he wanted to call friend.

            “Of course this is okay, mon chou,” Tsukiyami smiled, sensing his hesitation. “This is only normal, of course. Ghouls do this sort of thing all the time – it’s how we show one another we care. You see it first in parents and children: of course little ones don’t develop their kagune until around seven or eight, but they still cry and need reassurance, do they not? So parent ghouls wrap their infants up in their kagune and rock them to sleep. It’s how they console one another after fighting or after the child has thrown a tantrum or gotten scared.’

            “It’s not just them, of course. Friends do this as well. It can be casual, even, same as any hug between two people can be. It’s a sign of trust, of mutual protection. It’s also…” his look grew odd and tense, smile fixed in place. “It’s also used between lovers, you know,” he admitted. He knew better than to push his luck with Kaneki and he didn’t want to harm him any. He had no idea what had really happened those ten days at Aogiri Tree, but he had deduced enough to understand that it had been permanently scarring.

            “As I think you realized earlier,” he pressed gently. “The kagune can be extremely… sensitive. With the right finesse it can be very enjoyable to have touched and to touch with. This doesn’t have to be purely sexual, of course,” he added hastily. “Merely… this is how a ghoul shows that they love someone.”

            “Love?” Kaneki repeated, expression unreadable.

            “Well of course you must know that I love you, mi amour!” Tsukiyama returned, adding an oomph of bravado. His words were painfully true, but he was terrified to let them show genuinely less he be rejected. Kaneki eyed him critically, trying to sift the truth from the bullshit.

            “I wouldn’t say that obsession is equitable to love,” the white haired ghoul countered.

            “You wound me!” the other recoiled, affronted. He could detect the faint rise of Kaneki’s heartbeat, an off kilter rabbit song. How curious. “But of course I love you, mon cher. Someone so fearsome and dangerous and lovely as you, how could I not?”

            A complicated look crossed the smaller’s face and he looked away, almost disappointed. “Don’t be gross,” he grumbled, straightening the back of his coat. His kagune drooped slightly, pulling away. Tsukiyama started, hands waving animatedly as he tried to backpedal.

            “Please do not mistake my affections as false,” he interceded. “I…” Well it was much harder trying to be sincere – Tsukiyama seldom felt safe enough to be so frank.

            “You?” Kaneki pressed, looking back up at him. He looked strangely vulnerable then, eyes searching.

            “Well I…” the Gourmet licked his lips. “I do treasure you, you know? And not as just… well, meat. Of course, you will never stop smelling absolutely delectable,” he laughed nervously. “But in all sincerity, you are such a kind soul, Kaneki-kun. You care so deeply about those around you; you work so hard to protect us all. You… you never take time for yourself, you pour absolutely all of yourself into your ambitions. Even after all you’ve been through, you’ve remained so strong and so kind. It’s really quite admirable, you know? How could I not cherish a person like that? How could I not… not want to protect and stand beside someone like that? You deserve so much, Kaneki-kun. I just really wanted you to know that… that you are loved and wanted.”

            The younger ghoul froze in shock. It was so unlike the other to speak so candidly, without his weird foreign verbal ticks or showy gesturing of hands. His expression was serious and scared.

            Kaneki’s mind raced: that he was loved? That people wanted him around? Well that was in complete contradiction to what he had been thinking. The insinuation that he was worthwhile or that he was valued? That… he didn’t even know what to make of that. Gratitude filled him, bubbling up in his throat and warming his chest.

            Gently coaxing his kagune forward, he wrapped his limbs behind Tsukiyama, drawing him close. The Gourmet stiffened in confusion, uncertain if his life was about to suddenly and violently end. But with the way Kaneki was looking at him… he relaxed, letting the younger ball his hands up in his shirt, let him tug at the scarf at his neck, pull him down. Then all at once they were kissing, tentative and sweet. Tsukiyama could still taste the blood on the other’s lips, the tang in his mouth that was simultaneously delicious and repulsive.

            Their kagune intertwined, holding one another close. The touch was gentle and distantly erotic, promising something more between the two of them should only they stop and take things that direction. Tsukiyama pushed the thoughts from his mind: he wouldn’t be the one to hurt the person before him. He loved him too much to cause him any further pain.

            Kaneki parted from him, panting lightly, hair mussed and lips flushed. He looked absolutely angelic. Tsukiyama smiled, resting their foreheads together so they could look into one another’s eyes. “You are cherished,” he whispered. “You are so dear to me.”

            “Stay by my side?” Kaneki asked, blush coming to the tops of his cheeks. It was unlike him to ask anything of anyone, but he couldn’t resist this time. Not when the promise of affections flooded him, made him feel safe and valued and needed. “Please remain my sword?”

            “Always, mon chou,” Tsukiyama promised with a kiss. “Always.”


End file.
